


Bartleby, the Houseguest

by gostaks



Category: Bartleby the Scrivener - Herman Melville
Genre: Blow Jobs, M/M, the inherent romanticism of sharing food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:53:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29896590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gostaks/pseuds/gostaks
Summary: “Bartleby,” said I, in the kindest tone I could assume under such exciting circumstances, “will you go home with me now—not to my office, but to my dwelling—and remain there till we can conclude upon some convenient arrangement for you at our leisure? Come, let us start now, right away.”“I—” Bartleby paused, shifting upon his banister, “I think I would like that.”Bartleby decides to come home with the narrator and, given food security and stable housing, does better.
Relationships: Bartleby/Narrator (Bartleby the Scrivener)
Kudos: 1





	Bartleby, the Houseguest

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for a school assignment. Yes, I turned it in. Yes, I got an A.
> 
> First paragraph is taken directly from 'Bartleby'.

“Bartleby,” said I, in the kindest tone I could assume under such exciting circumstances, “will you go home with me now—not to my office, but to my dwelling—and remain there till we can conclude upon some convenient arrangement for you at our leisure? Come, let us start now, right away.”

“I—” Bartleby paused, shifting upon his banister, “I think I would like that.”

I will confess that I was not overjoyed at this pronouncement. I had made my offer, however, and I did not retract it.

Bartleby trailed after me as we went, sometimes falling almost into step behind my right shoulder, sometimes pausing listlessly, staring off at something only he could see. “Bartleby. Bartleby, we must keep going,” I said to him each time he paused, and each time he seemed not to hear me. Undeterred, I, many times, reached out to grasp his wrist and guide him; he seemed to jerk back into animation the moment before my hand touched his, stepping so smoothly out of my reach that he seemed not to have stopped at all.

We arrived at my home as the sun began to set, so Bartleby first saw the space illuminated by slanting orange light. He followed me closely to the door, being in one of his phases of attentiveness, but stopped just a few steps inside.

“Take your time to settle in, Bartleby,” I told him, silently congratulating myself on bringing him this far. “But I would prefer if you stepped a bit forward, so I may close the door behind you.” For the first time in a long while, I found myself using Bartleby’s word, prefer, without discomfort. I had succeeded in bringing Bartleby home. I had requested something of him, and he had complied.

My euphoria faded as I realized that Bartleby was not stepping forward. He stood very still, eyes fixed, I fancied, on the square of light cast by the window across the room.

“Why don’t you go stand by the window, like you did in the office?” I offered.

“I am just fine where I am, thank you.”

I considered arguing further, but gave up the notion immediately. This was Bartleby—my words would not sway him, if he did not want to be swayed. After a few minutes’ contemplation, during which the square of fading sunlight moved across the floor to pool on Bartleby’s feet, I managed to contort my body past his and swing the door home.

“Sit wherever you like. You’ll sleep over there,” here I pointed off to my left, “and eat whatever you need from the pantry. If you go out, take the key beside the door and lock up behind you. Do you understand me?”

Bartleby gave what I hoped was a slight nod and not a simple random motion of his chin.

As I arranged my supper and went about my evening, my thoughts dwelled on Bartleby in the doorway. I did not know what I would do if he stood there still in the morning—would he move enough that I could pass him by? Would he allow my housecleaner to enter? Had I replaced an inconvenient but ultimately harmless specter within my office with a permanent and immovable barrier in my home? Each time, I shook these thoughts off, and each time I returned to them. I certainly had time, for I was not accustomed to being home before late evenings, most nights of the week. I gave up on distraction, snuffed my candle, and took to bed, hoping Bartleby would at least not haunt my dreams.

*

The morning proved that at least some of my worries were unfounded. Bartleby had, presumably, slept, and now stood by my window staring out at the street. I traveled to work, did my typical business, and returned home. If Bartleby had moved in that time, he’d returned to his place by the window with unerring precision. He stood there, silhouetted by the gaslamp, staring.

I was unsure whether to be concerned about his behavior—he had proven himself, when he lived in my office, to be quite capable of caring for himself, at least to the extent of procuring food and maintaining hygiene befitting a scrivener in an office of law. And yet, I had hoped (fruitlessly, it seems) that it had truly been something about the office that caused his listlessness. That, taken from a place of business to a home, whatever spell he was under would break, and he would smile at me and shake my hand and, after thanking me effusively, go off from whence he came and haunt my chambers no more.

*

I began to suspect Bartleby was not eating that Sunday night. I had stepped out in the morning to attend church, and again in the evening to visit with an acquaintance from out of town, but much of Sunday I spent sitting in a comfortable armchair, not far from Bartleby’s window. In all that time, Bartleby did not move from his spot. He hardly seemed even to breathe. Come suppertime, I took matters into my own hands:

“Bartleby, would you join me for a meal? I would be honored if you would come sit and dine with me, this evening.”

Bartleby did not turn toward me, but said, “I would prefer not to.”

My heart sunk at the return of his refrain, but I controlled myself, and said “Very well, Bartleby. I will be eating now, and you may eat when you are ready.” With that, I left him. I thought myself content to allow him to care for himself, but the thought of him starving at my window worried at me. It is simple enough to manage, I thought to myself, I will take some food that will not suffer for sitting out in the open air, and leave it only a few steps from the window, so Bartleby may help himself if he wishes. And I did just that, slicing some cheese and a bit of bread, and arranging them on a plate with an apple, and leaving the whole affair on the table near Bartleby, so it was nearly within arm’s reach. “Bartleby,” said I, “this is for you to eat, when you wish it.”

Bartleby maintained his contemplation by the window, lit by flickering gaslight, and I, content that I had done my due diligence, made myself ready to sleep.

*

In the morning, before I set out for my office, I looked at the plate of food—untouched. Bartleby again stood by the window, continuing his endless vigil. A failure, then. If he preferred not to eat (and there was his word again, prefer), I could not and would not force him. Still, I felt I had to try once more, and so said, “Bartleby, while all the food and resources of this dwelling are at your disposal, this food here on the table is especially for you,” and with such pronouncement, went out the door and off to my place of business.

It is perhaps time to say a bit about my legal work. For the most part, it proceeded just as I have described before, but with a few notable differences. I had moved my offices, of course, and still struggled some days to make the right turnings to arrive at the new building, and not the old one. Turkey and Nippers had continued their on-again-off-again performances, trading off politeness and irritability sometime during the dinner hour, Ginger Nut turned thirteen, and I gave him a small birthday bonus, which I believe he spent on candy, and my work had continued to grow more strenuous, requiring the acquisition of two new scriveners. These two, who were brothers, were unremarkable beyond the fact that they were near-impossible to separate—if one was running to the post office, the other must needs come along, and the same if one or the other was conducting a review in my office or going out to dinner or leaving for the night. That idiosyncrasy was easy enough to deal with—certainly their tendency to perform any task in enthusiastic duplicate was a welcome contrast to Bartleby’s stubborn inaction.

However, I believe we all missed Bartleby’s presence, in an odd way. Not desiring to separate the brothers from my workspace as I had Bartleby, I set their desks in the open, where all four of my scriveners could see each other and interact, if they so wished. Bartleby’s corner, as I had begun to think of the space just outside my office, where again I had a window overlooking a patch of dull brickwork, remained empty. Lacking another place to store it, his screen sat there, folded. Many times, in those first few days, I stepped out into my office with “Bartleby!” on my tongue, only to find that he was not there. Unaccountably, and even though he now formed a constant presence in my home, I found I had begun to miss him.

I stayed late that night, organizing urgent documents for the morning, but when I returned home, I found Bartleby still in his place. My dejection was abruptly cut off when I realized the apple was no longer sitting on the plate. I looked closer, and found that all but two of the slices of cheese had also vanished.

This success started what, at times, I began to think of as an intense logic puzzle. I had discovered that Bartleby would eat, but the foods he tolerated remained opaque to me. One apple, he would eat, but if I left two or more, I would find the lot untouched. Cheese was a perpetual success, aside from the fact that two pieces would always remain on the plate when I arrived home in the evening. Preserves were judged a failure—I thought at first it was simply because I had left him a closed jar, but he also would not eat them from open containers or spread on bread. And, though it took me the better part of a month to realize it, he would eat nothing at all if I did not carefully explain to him, every morning, that the food on the table was especially for him.

Each time I put out something he would eat, it was a sweeping victory, each time I came home to find food uneaten was a crushing defeat. Yet, how quickly these things become routine. Soon, noting Bartleby’s preferences was simply part of my day, no more strange or difficult than locking up my offices in the evening. What Bartleby did not eat that day simply became part of my own supper, and it became easier to simply set out, in addition to those foods I knew he would eat, whatever parts of my own meal could be left on the table. This allowed me to put forth more foods for his perusal, and in the evening simply eat anything he did not.

*

One day, perhaps a week before Christmas and feeling in a festive mood, I bought a sweet orange. In the morning, this was left on the table with Bartleby’s and my supper, which was how I had begun to think of the array, and when I returned home that evening I found myself unaccountably disappointed to find it uneaten. When I finished my meal, and after a long moment’s contemplation, I split it in half, putting one portion back inside its peel. I turned to Bartleby, “Bartleby, this half of the orange is especially for you. I’ll leave it here, at the end of the table.”

It transpired that not long after that, I stepped out of the room for a moment to note down a thought on a bit of paper. I stepped back in a minute later and almost froze in shock—Bartleby was there by the window, looking as ghostlike as ever, but his fingers held a few sections of orange.

I do not know how to explain the warmth that bloomed in my chest when I saw Bartleby move, then, to peel another section away and eat it. It was a victory in our battle of wills, sure, and ought to have been made sweeter by the fact that it was the first new food Bartleby had accepted in several weeks. Yet that was not the joy that suffused me. It was, I realized much later, the pleasure of offering something to Bartleby and having him accept, of sharing the sweetness of the orange with him.

And then… and then when only two sections of the orange remained, he reached toward me. Interpreting his gesture as a come-hither, I walked closer. We stood there, an arm’s length apart, until Bartleby—Bartleby!—broke the silence, “These are for you.”

“No, Bartleby. That is your half of the orange. I would not take it from you.”

“I would prefer,” said he, “if you took them.”

“Very well, Bartleby. How is this: I will take one slice, and you take the other? We can then eat them together.” Bartleby nodded, and split the two slices apart. I took one, he the other, and the juice bloomed sweet and sour on my tongue.

That night, I realized I’d quite forgotten my original intent to find Bartleby another place to live.

*

We continued. My habit of taking meals near Bartleby extended, in fits and starts, to spending more time beside him. One Sunday, in a fit of whimsy, I dragged my most comfortable chair to Bartleby’s window, placing it opposite from where he usually stood, and sat there while I read the newspaper. It quickly became my preferred spot in the evenings, before I retired. I would sit reading by lamplight, Bartleby staring out the window visible above the pages of my book or pamphlet, and we would be together in simple, silent companionship.

*

One morning in early January, I woke late and rushed to the door, barely taking the time to lay out food for Bartleby and my evening meal. I must have been quite flustered, for I forgot to say anything at all to him besides, “Good day, Bartleby.”

As I made to open the door, Bartleby caught my hand. This was, I would realize later, the first time the two of us had ever touched. (He had not been one to shake hands when I hired him, and, seeing as his skin had been ink-stained as is common among scriveners, I had been all too willing to refrain.) I had expected his grip to resemble his form—cold, pale, and wan—yet his fingers were warm and confident.

I turned back toward him, “Bartleby, whatever is wrong?”

“I would like you to tell me about the food on the table,” Bartleby said.

“Bartleby, I tell you about the food on the table every morning. Surely by now you understand that this will always be the case.”

“I would prefer that you tell me anyway,” said he.

Having nothing to lose but my time, and Bartleby quite capable of taking more of that precious resource (and also, I’ll admit now, growing more willing to tolerate Bartleby’s strange preferences), I gathered myself up and said, “Bartleby, the food on the table is especially for you, as it always is. You need not worry about that.” I gave his hand a gentle squeeze, as I would when comforting a child.

“Yes, but I prefer that you remind me,” he said, and squeezed my hand back before stepping away, returning to his window as if nothing had ever occurred.

In truth, had I not felt the lingering warmth of his hand against mine, I think I might have doubted that the incident happened at all. Bartleby had moved from his window, of his own volition. He had asked me for something, even if it was something small to give, and in return granted me warmth in winter’s endless snow.

*

I do not recall why I began reading aloud to Bartleby. I was not in the habit of reading much aloud at home—it was an activity I undertook during my working hours, in the checking of documents and other tasks of an office of law, not something I chose to do for pleasure. But one morning the urge overtook me, and I began to read aloud an article about some new product of industrial engineering, and the changes it promised to make, and simply never stopped.

The greater surprise was that Bartleby seemed to listen, and even to pay close attention. At first, I thought I imagined him leaning toward me, but day by day he drew closer, until he had stepped almost across the window to the foot of my chair.

“Would you like to read the paper when I’m done with it?” I asked him. I had not seen him read, but as a scrivener I was certain that he must be able to, and he had clearly shown an interest.

“No, I enjoy your reading.”

“Very well, Bartleby. Would you like to come around so you can at least look over my shoulder?”

“Not at this time, no.”

Bartleby did in fact move to peer over my shoulder, though not for another week. He seemed to engage more closely when an article was accompanied by an illustration, and I worried for his eyesight—perhaps he could not see the newspaper’s fine print. He denied any issue with his eyes, however, and continued to lean on the back of my chair as I read. Sometimes he would lean close, to see something in detail, and his face would brush along my shoulder, or his fingertips along my knee. Always briefly, gone before I even realized he was there.

One night, after being kept in the office past midnight, I returned home and fell asleep at once, sitting up in my comfortable chair. I woke at perhaps four of the clock, with an odd weight leaning against my knee. I squinted in the darkness—the lamps outside had gone out, and the room was illuminated only by moonlight—and made out a shape that must have been Bartleby, leaning against my legs, head turned to face my knee. He was snoring, very gently.

(I will admit that it was a bit of a comfort to have incontrovertible evidence that Bartleby slept. At times, though with decreasing frequency, he seemed so like a ghost, fixed there in his spot by the window. He seemed always to be awake when I retired for the night and awake again when I rose in the morning, and if he went out or slept in the afternoons, I had never witnessed it.)

I was hesitant to disturb him at all, but for the fact that I am not as young as I once was and would not fare well if I finished out the night sleeping in my chair. I rose, trying to disturb him as little as possible, and made ready for bed in more silence than I ever had before.

On a whim, I peeked back into the room I had begun to think of as Bartleby’s. I must have woken him, for he no longer sat slumped on the floor, but instead curled in the chair, again snoring quietly. In the morning, he had returned to the window, like nothing had ever happened.

*

After that day, two changes occurred in my life: The first was that I began to reduce the amount of work I took on. I had been staying too long at the office, and both I and my employees were growing exhausted, as my sleeping upright had clearly proven. It also gave me more time to spend at home, reading with Bartleby. The second was less my choice, but no less welcomed for it—Bartleby seemed to break through the implicit barrier we had placed between us. Gradually, he began to lean closer to me as we read together, until, before I knew it, he had perched himself on the arm of my chair, his shoulder leaning against mine, his arm slung around my neck, his breath warming my temple. I had been startled at first—it was by no means the way I would normally sit with anyone, even a close friend—but Bartleby’s warmth was welcome in those cold spring months, and I found I did not mind being close to him.

At the same time, he began to ask questions about our reading material. I found, to my surprise and delight, that he had a sharp memory and a quick tongue, and he would often reference an article we had read months before, or draw a connection to some other thing he had observed.

These conversations were often cut short as Bartleby, who had been animated only moments before, lapsed into stillness. In that state, he returned to the listless scrivener who had come to my home many months before, saying very little, and most of that variations of “I would prefer not to.” It was as if he had a reserve of fuel, and when it failed he faded like an empty lamp. In those times, he returned to his place beside the window, staring out upon the street, until a few hours or a day later he would ignite again, and start another conversation about some piece of news.

*

In May, he kissed me.

It was an abrupt gesture. One moment, we were talking about stock prices, and in the next he had wrapped his hand around the back of my head, leaned in, and pressed his lips to mine. I tasted apples, and then he was gone, drawing back and unfolding himself from the chair and walking back towards his window.

“Bartleby,” I said, and found myself unable to say more.

He turned back to look at me, and his face was full of grief, “I’m sorry.”

“No, Bartleby. It was—It was simply unexpected. I must go now, I forgot that I had an early meeting with Mr. L——.” I walked to the door, and was almost out when I remembered to say, “And Bartleby, the food on the table is especially for you, just as always.”

I will admit that I was quite flustered, and perhaps not quite in possession of my right mind, because I walked not to my office of nine months, but to the chambers I had labored in along with Bartleby, and did not even realize it until my key failed to turn in the lock. It came to me then that not only was I in the wrong building, but that today was a Sunday—my lie was even more obvious than it would have been any other day of the week.

I sought refuge in my office, regardless. Surrounded by legal reference material, I found that none of it was the slightest bit useful to my current conundrum. Bartleby wasn’t a contract to review or a will to execute, and I found myself completely at a loss to understand what had just happened. Or, I comprehended the kiss, and the taste of apples on his lips—I imagined I could still taste it, though it must have faded by now—but not what to do about it.

On the desk before me was a single sheet of paper, on which I had written in a shaky hand, ‘Bartleby, the scrivener, kissed me,’ and then, below it, ‘and I want him to do it again.’

By the time I mustered the courage to return to my own home, the sky was beginning to lighten in anticipation of dawn. I opened the door as quietly as I could, hoping not to disturb Bartleby, and found him again sleeping in my chair. I stood there frozen for a moment, hat and coat still on, watching the way his chest rose and fell as he breathed, the fine cast of his features. I went to bed, hoping to find at least an hour’s rest before morning, leaving my note on the table. ‘Bartleby, the scrivener, kissed me, and I want him to do it again.”

*

He did it again. Not that morning, for I woke late and left in a rush, but later. Many times.

*

You may be wondering now whether I found anything wrong about our relationship. For reasons I can’t explain, most of my trepidation was personal. I was much older than Bartleby, I owned the dwelling in which he lived, I had once been his employer. I was afraid—justifiably, I feel—that any desire Bartleby felt for me would be tied up in that. And, too, I struggled to find what in myself would be desirable to Bartleby. The second time we kissed, he proved to me that he was very good at it. With his clever tongue and his pretty face, he could have, if he preferred, had quite a few women and not a small number of men. I found it difficult to believe that he would have chosen me of his own volition.

Yet, this was Bartleby. Nothing I had done, thus far, had compelled him to take any action he did not want to take. If I had asked anything of him that he did not want to give, he had only to tell me that he would prefer not to do it. He had, in fact, done so in a few cases, when conversation led into kisses, and he lapsed back into his habitual blankness. In those moments, he’d shaken off my hands and my advances, preferring to stand by the window and watch the street.

*

Our exploration was slow, cautious. Bartleby’s habit, one I found I enjoyed very much, was to take my hand in his and guide it to where he wanted to go. He showed me, guiding my hands and by example, how to stroke his hair, kiss his neck, grab his ass. In turn, I guided him as best I could—I found that I did not like kisses on my neck, but very much enjoyed when he tangled his fingers in my hair and pulled, and that he could send a little thrill through my entire body when he ran fingers down my spine.

When I was ready, a process that took several months, he guided my hands downwards. I found then, to my chagrin, that I had no idea how to give a man pleasure. Bartleby did, and he showed me, wrapping his hands around mine, and then my hand around his cock. It was warm and firm and listed a bit to the right, when left to its own devices.

I ran my finger along the head of his penis, heard his soft, pleased exhalation, and pulled back, “Bartleby, I am not ready for this.”

He nodded, then pursed his lips, “I would like to finish while you watch.”

“I would like to see that,” said I.

I watched, rapt, as Bartleby ran his fingers up and down his cock, slowly at first and then faster, until he arched his back and closed his eyes and came. “Now you?” he asked, after a long moment of silence.

I thought about it, and Bartleby waited, seemingly content to sit there all night if I preferred. Then slowly, deliberately, I let myself out of my pants. As I did, I felt a spike of fear—that he would see me and reject me, that I would not be enough for him. All of that vanished as he put his mouth on me.

He came with me to my bed that night. To have him there, warm and close, filled a place in my chest that I had not, until that moment, realized was empty.

*

I woke, for the first time in many months, before Bartleby did. The light of sunrise peeked through my curtains, staining his hair copper. I ran my fingers through it, hoping that in doing so I would not wake him. “My Bartleby,” I murmured, “Oh, my Bartleby.”

“I would prefer,” a sleepy voice said, “that you not call me that. ‘My Bartleby’”

My heart clenched, “Will you at least tell me why not?”

“I simply do not prefer it. Is that not enough for you?” He sat up, facing me, leaving him a dark silhouette against the morning light.

“No, Bartleby, it is not!” I didn’t expect the anger that came boiling out of my lips, but I found I could not stop it. I had accepted so much from Bartleby, and it hurt that he refused to give me even this small thing. “You say that you would prefer not to do this, and that. Do you not trust me? Even after this? Why do you refuse to be reasonable?”

Bartleby sighed, and seemed to deflate, “I find that I prefer not to be reasonable.” With that, he climbed out of my bed and left my room, swinging the door shut behind him.

He was not by the window when I left my dwelling that morning. He was not there when I returned. There was no sign of his few effects, no evidence that the food I left out had been eaten, nothing at all to suggest that he had been back while I was gone.

Not knowing what to do, I sat down in a chair that was too cold, without Bartleby there to warm me, and read aloud to an empty room.

*

My distraction only grew over the following weeks, until even casual acquaintances were commenting on it. I told them little—how was I to explain what I had with Bartleby? He haunted me day and night, the memory of his hands and lips and voice coming to me at inconvenient times. Too often, I found myself staring at a document, reading the same line over and over, imagining Bartleby standing by my window. Several times, I called for him instead of one of the other scriveners in my employ, which garnered me confused looks and, one morning, a sharp reprimand from Nippers. Twice, I had to throw out the last page of a letter I was writing because my mind strayed and, instead of putting down information about such-and-such property dispute, began writing my apologies to Bartleby.

I began to wonder whether Bartleby had been real. He had left so little physical evidence of his coming and going. His screen still resided in my office, propped against one wall, but perhaps that was simply where it had always been stored. My chair was still by the window, but perhaps I had put it there so I could overlook the street, and get better light in the evenings. He had not left behind so much as a stray sock in my dwelling.

I found myself standing by windows, staring out at nothing at all. Each time I caught myself at it, I led myself down wild trains of thought—was this why Bartleby had behaved so strangely? Had he been mourning a lost love? Had he been awaiting word from someone dear to him, with worry growing every day he heard only silence? Had he been consumed by grief? I would resolve to stop, and yet inevitably, like I was drawn to it, I would return to the window, and to the emptiness beyond.

*

Bartleby returned to my dwelling on a Saturday in July, just as the sun was setting, and found me standing by the window in the spot he had always occupied, staring at the street. He hung his hat and coat—a different coat, I noticed later, than he had worn when last I saw him, and went to me. I did not know what to expect. Apology? Insult? Forgiveness? I waited for Bartleby to break the silence. Instead, he came to stand beside me, looking out of the window, close enough that his shoulder pressed against mine.

For a very long while, we simply stood.

*

Nothing was like it had been, before Bartleby had left. I had dreamed, before Bartleby’s return, that we would simply go back to our usual lives—eating together and talking and kissing and perhaps making love, when Bartleby was inclined to do so, and quiet stillness when he preferred to stand by the window and watch.

At first, though, we were hesitant around each other. It was like before, when Bartleby had just come home. We had to go through each step, though it came more easily now. I coaxed him into eating, when otherwise he would forget or refuse, read aloud with no expectation of touch, though sometimes Bartleby would wrap his arms around me and cling in a way he never had before, kissed like we were learning each other’s bodies for the first time, though sometimes he would grab my hair and bite my lip, just the way I liked.

One Sunday morning, nearly a year to the day after Bartleby came into my home, he woke me with a kiss before the break of dawn. This was new, and for a moment I felt a flutter of fear. Was he leaving me again? For good this time? Before I my thoughts could spiral into despair, Bartleby produced from behind his back a sweet orange and a broad smile.

Together, we peeled and ate it, heedless of the sticky juice on the sheets. Bartleby’s tongue was sweet and tart against my lips, his hands grasped my hips, and, slowly, giving me plenty of time to refuse, he loosened the drawstring of my pants.

“Bartleby,” said I, feeling in that moment an unaccountable desire to be certain, “you do understand that you are under no obligation to do this? That you could stop at any time, and I would bear you no ill will?”

Bartleby pulled my pants free of my cock and looked up at me, face aglow with the light of the morning sun. “I find,” he said, and ran his tongue along my shaft from base to tip, “that I would prefer not to.”

  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to me in the future for catching that typo. Sorry I didn't get it before I posted! XD


End file.
